Absolutely Kabby
by capitol grasshopper
Summary: A collection of short prompts from tumblr, all Kane/Abby related
1. I'm not gonna die in a hospital

_AN: Collection of short starter prompts (bolded) or regular prompts from tumblr (hi, I'm akachankami everywhere else, come and play!)  
_

* * *

 **"I'm not gonna die in a hospital where the nurses aren't even hot."**

Jackson raised unimpressed eyes to hers from across the room and she had to suppress a giggle. "I'm not a nurse," he answered quietly.

"And I'm not a pincushion!" Lieutenant Kane retorted fighting off the hands holding the needle.

Abby listened to her trainee bickering with the cranky cop as she studied the results of his scan, on the verge of amusement and irritation.

"You'll probably live, Mr Kane," she announced at last, approaching the stretcher he was trying to leave, and ignoring his _Lieutenant Kane_ requested through gritted teeth. "But I want to make sure of it. You have a concussion and I can't release you unless you have someone who can take you home and stay with you, on watch for the next 48 hours."

She watched his shoulders slump a little and the fight in him leave, which allowed Jackson to inject him with the painkiller she'd prescribed. He just stared at her hopeless and confused.

"You had a bad accident, Lt Kane, do you remember?"

From his dark eyes staring back at her blankly she guessed that no, he didn't remember chasing a band of fugitives across town and being involved in the car crash that clogged the ER for hours with injured from the bus that overturned.

"Were there casualties?"

Abby sighed, "Some."

He was very docile after that, he got back on the stretcher and answered Jackson's standard questions without any further cheek. She saw him chat with a few of his fellow cops two hours later, when she was signing off papers at the end of her shift, saw Jackson release him soon after. And she saw him again on her way home at the subway station, alone.

"Lt Kane?"

The look he gave back would have made any lie futile so he didn't even try. _Busted_. She should have brought him back to the hospital and reprimand Jackson for not double checking. She should have ranted about patients' recklessness making her work worthless, she should have been tired and angry and sad and maybe she was. And as far as she understood he was too. And they were both alone.

So she heard herself ask instead: "Dinner?"


	2. Why should I go to Polis?

_AN: After the S3 trailer and **that awesome kiss** , I was prompted to write something about its context. I tried._

* * *

"Why should I go to Polis?" she argued once again as her daughter crammed her bag with whatever Kane was handing her.

"Mom, if we want to avoid a war, this is our only chance."

Marcus kept his mouth shut and his eyes on the task at hand, which only further proved her that something was off with the whole plan.

"I'm not the best diplomat we have," she countered, eyeing him suspiciously to get a glimpse of a reaction that didn't come.

"The grounders will only speak with you," clarified Clarke.

"Oh really, since when?" Abby sniggered.

Clarke took her hands in hers to distract her from the man who was actively avoiding her gaze: "You're still the Chancellor. If we're going to advocate for peace they'll need to see _you_ do it, in Polis, in front of everyone, on behalf of all of us."

Abby stared at her daughter's eyes for a few moments. The light in the meeting room was poor and Clarke was not her baby girl anymore, the honest, pure hearted, dreamer Clarke she raised and knew every secret of just by looking at her eyes. And she knew when she was being played.

They were lying. They were both guarded and something was definitely off.

"I'm not so sure I can speak on behalf of even half of us, Clarke."

Pike was getting more consensus every day, Marcus still had control of his guards but scared civilians could be more dangerous than a trained army. The last incident almost erupted in civil unrest.

Bellamy entered without knocking and laid another bag full of rations on the table. "The horses are ready just outside the gate, Raven is ready when you're ready," he announced.

Clarke shouldered the bag and thanked him curtly, confabulating by the door, leaving Abby to connect the dots.

"You're gonna do something stupid, aren't you?" she said to Marcus, more a statement than a question.

He didn't turn around to face her nor stopped packing what looked like maps she shouldn't have needed for a short diplomatic trip to Polis.

"We really ought to go now," pressed Clarke.

"I don't want to go," she replied, too soft, to his back. His shoulders sagged and he finally turned to face her with shielded eyes. He looked a hundred years older, his jaw set in stone. He was going to do something stupid and dangerous and he didn't want her there. He arranged for her to flee in the night, like a thief out of prison if they needed Raven to shut the electrified fence, with her daughter to protect her, and because he knew she'd never leave without Clarke, but she had never been more certain of anything in her life. "I don't want to go."

She took one step closer and he took two, his hand came up in her hair and his lips found hers, demanding and possessive, his fingers on her hip pulling her closer. She let him, willingly melting in his arms as his beard gently scraped her cheeks, and she responded diving her own fingers in the long locks at his nape, gripping his shoulder when she felt dizzy, welcoming the familiar warm prickling sensation. She let a sweet, soft hum escape, forgetful of their audience.

Clarke stared. Bellamy, more discreetly, contemplated the tip of his boots, at least till they had to break for air and they rested, breathless, forehead to forehead.

For Abby's ears only, Marcus whispered: "Please."

Clarke turned to Bellamy with a silent question on her face, one he didn't really know how to answer: yes he knew, no he didn't know how long.

Abby, eyes still closed, felt her way to Marcus' lips again and he kissed the tip of her fingers, then her nose, then the corner of her mouth again, before stepping back to let her go. He took her bag from the table and dropped it gently on her shoulder.

She knew he wouldn't see her out the gate, that this was goodbye, she just couldn't feel the words coming out. _May we meet again_.

Neither did he. Clarke tugged at her hand and she just had to swallow treacherous tears for the rest of the journey.


	3. Stay the night Please

**"Stay the night. Please,"** he'd said.

But she hadn't. She had finals and she had the side job at the library and somehow that seemed more important than breakfast in bed or whatever silly promise he'd whispered in the dead of night, in that tiny single room, in that student's flat he shared with two other cadets.

And what did it matter anyway, when he'd be off oversea in three weeks and she'd only met him the very same night at a graduation party.

She hadn't.

Flash forward twenty-five years and she has a daughter with a dead man and he has a son and an inherited stepdaughter when they meet again at their children's wedding.

And he's asking again, later, because she married a blond, blue eyed engineer, but she's always had a thing for deep, mysterious eyes and uniforms and his scottish lilt. _Stay the night. Please._

But what excuse does she have? How to explain to Clarke that she fell into bed with her new husband's father (again)? How to tell Bellamy that the person he reminded her of the first time her daughter brought him home was a vague memory of hot skin and darker eyes of a wild one-night-stand sex in her college years? How to avoid being the talk of the week (month?) with this soap opera-ish preamble?

 _Stay the night. Please._

Her skin is tingling with the buzz of pleasant tiredness and she would want nothing more than just fall asleep then and there, in a hotel room five floors above the ballroom where her daughter married his son mere hours ago, in a city neither of them ever lived in but that their children call home.

Specially now that he's lazily kissing her shoulder and mumbling something about time - gone, present, yet to come, what does it matter anyway when it can finally be theirs.

"Do I still get breakfast in bed?" she asks.

His lips stretch into a grin, hot against her bare back. "Gotta find out."


	4. Just relax, I'll wash your hair for you

**"Just relax, I'll wash your hair for you."**

Abby sighs, resigned. She can't really relax but at least she lets him take the brush from her hand, frustrated. And he starts untangling her braid, not pulling and breaking like she was doing, but more gently, starting from the bottom.

It was hard at first, letting go. She could barely stand on her own and Clarke was gone, winter was clawing at their feet and the handful of kids they brought back from that dreadful mountain were sick, tired and traumatized.

It took her long enough to acknowledge that she was, too.

He helped. As he'd always done since they landed, standing back, but standing close. And at least he was still standing, she thought one day seeing him come back from the morning hunt with his ears and nose red from the cold and his fingers blue.

"Where are your hat and gloves?" she asked limping to the gate. Warmer clothes were in short supply even in Mount Weather deposits and they'd been divided among those leaving camp for daily duties.

"Lost," he said scooping her up and carrying her back to medical. _On Monty and Harper_ , told her Bellamy two hours later.

When she stopped limping, he didn't stop carrying her to bed, and by the time spring rolled around, they stopped pretending they shared a bed just to keep warm.

It hit her one morning in the middle of March, as she splashed cold water on her face and he carefully reshaped his beard by the small mirror, how domestic they really were. And how natural it felt.

So now that she's covered in blood and guilt and her face is clean with tears, she lets him, and only him, take the brush as she sits in the basin in the shades of their room with chattering teeth.

She's lost many patients before, losing Clarke just as she was finally back was never an option. But there was so much blood and everyone was screaming and rifles were shooting and when finally everything was over and Clarke was resting, barely alive, but home, she looked around and her nerves gave in.

"Just breathe," he tells her, carefully peeling her bloody clothes off. It's not hard anymore, it's second nature, to hold her hand out and feel his, to move in synch, to let him take control when she can't bear the burden on her own. _Just relax, I'll wash your hair for you._

He wipes her skin with a wet towel, then soaks her hair and brushes them clean from her daughter's blood till her teeth are not chattering anymore and she's stopped shivering. She couldn't love him more than when he wraps her in a blanket and drops her in a cot next to Clarke's, kissing her nose goodnight.


	5. What about a compromise?

**"What about a compromise? I'll kill them first, and if it turns out they were friendly, I'll apologize."**

Clarke stared at Bellamy, then back at the daddy long-legs spiders slowly making their way towards them on the playground concrete path, then back at Bellamy again. "Wouldn't it be too late then?" she questioned.

"They are threate-terthe-" he babbled "threatening us!" he exclaimed at last. To be fair, he wasn't really sure of what the big word meant but he'd heard it on the news and wanted to impress his new four year old friend with his five months older superior knowledge.

Clarke still seemed unconvinced, though. She stared at the approaching spiders and instead of running away she crouched on the ground to further inspect the _threat_. She picked up a rock just in case. And so did Bellamy. But the stupid spiders still wouldn't stop approaching and Bellamy panicked and threw the rock first.

In the end, Mrs Griffin and Mr Kane had to divide the screaming children rolling on dirt as the poor unaware daddy long-legs slowly trailed away along the path.

"He wanted to kill them!" cried Clarke knocking her mother on the ground and ruining her perfectly ironed shirt trying to hug her way to safety.

"But I missed! And she threw the rock at me!" countered Bellamy fighting his uncle's grip to pull on Clarke's blonde braids.

 _I'm so sorry_ , Abby mouthed at Marcus who couldn't hide an amused grin for her, but became instantly serious the moment Bellamy turned around and the lecture began.

Fifteen minutes later they were sharing a taxi home, both children bruised and pouting, covered in dirt but finally quiet. They exchanged a look and a shy smile above their heads when Clarke gave Bellamy the _Tangled_ themed band-aid her mother produced from her bag.

They also exchanged phone numbers before the car stopped in front of Abby's house, and the girls waved goodbye with rosy cheeks and smirks that promised troubles, and Marcus thought maybe what seemed like a hassle at first (taking Bellamy off of his very pregnant and very frayed sister's hands) turned out to be the change he needed in the monotonous grey routine of his life.


	6. Do you want me to leave?

**"Do you want me to leave?"**

"No, we need to talk about it!" she said slamming the door shut behind her.

He stared at her stepping out of her boots and removing her jacket at the same time. "First you pick night shift three times in a row, then the whole collapsed solar panel disaster that takes you all of yesterday, and then medical swamped for the food poisoning this morning," she said moving onto unbuttoning her jeans, "You can't avoid me forever! We are going to talk about your little side project, _now_!"

He grimaced. "You're covered in puke…"

"Did I mention food poisoning?" she snapped, clearly irritated, "The Fords kid got sick on me, that's why we're here," she concluded tying her hair up.

"But -"

"Oh for heaven's sake, turn around! Just look at the wall," she ordered.

Meekly, he turned on his heels and let his gaze wander around till it mercifully fixed on a dent in the metal of her quarters. He felt like a schoolboy in the principal office, trying hard not to think of her, undoubtedly underdressed, splashing water on herself just behind him.

"It wasn't my idea, anyway," he preempted "but I think it could help in the long run."

"Really, Marcus? Because so far I had to treat three broken bones, a bleeding nose, two dislocated shoulders, and cracked ribs. In one week."

He grimaced again, shrugging helplessly to the wall, not really knowing what to say. It wasn't his fault people were unfit, clumsy and untrained after a lifetime in space, it took time and perseverance to get in shape and do what the grounders did since childhood, climbing trees and jumping off collapsed buildings; they certainly could all benefit from that _side project_. But, "They'll get better," was all he could manage.

"At _parkour_?" she all but shouted back, "Someone lost their front teeth on the roof of the mess hall, Marcus! Couldn't you just organize… I don't know, salsa lessons instead? People don't usually lose their teeth dancing."

"Fine," he sighed at last, almost turning around rolling his eyes before remembering she was probably still half naked and fuming (and he was quite convinced by now this setting was all a ploy to make him fluster) "We'll have basic training for everyone first. And dance lessons."

He heard her giggle behind him, much closer than expected, and this time he did turn around to find her wrapped in a towel, craning her neck to eye him suspiciously.

"And who's going to teach salsa?" she sniggered.

He smirked back down at her, pretending to be unaffected by the amount of visible wet skin. "Show up after dinner and you'll find out," he dared, stepping around her and leaving her alone to redress.

 _Perfect_ , he mentally cursed, now he just had to - cool and - find a dance teacher (or the closest to a dance teacher Camp Jaha could provide) before sunset; and show up to class as well. Not that he needed salsa lessons, but he certainly was not one to pass up a chance to make Abby twirl in his arms.


	7. I think I know how to use a bed

_AN: This one kinda got away from me. It started as a prompt and then got a sequel, and that sequel needed fixing. So there are three parts to it._

* * *

 _I_

 **"I think I know how to use a bed."**

"Yeah? That's why we're sitting on the floor," she counters mockingly.

He fiddles with his hands, pulling on the hem of his pajama, till she sneaks hers in his and forces him to stop.

He doesn't turn to look at her, like he didn't when she quietly sat down next to him, smoothing her clean pinafore in the soft light of dawn and complaining that soldiers now came back needing retraining in social standards.

"I don't want to sleep," he admits.

"Captain -"

"Or I wish I could, but…" he rectifies interrupting her, "You can help with that, you have pills, right?"

This time he does look her in the eyes and she shivers. _Haunted_ , like most of the other patients' back from the front, and misty with fears, but hopeful still, that the horrors of the war in the continent they'd witnessed won't plague his nights again. She made peace with herself long ago when she first volunteered in the British Red Cross and thought she was grateful, at least, that she never saw the same empty look in her late husband's eyes.

"Your S.O. said you have nightmares," she says tentatively.

"My Superior Officer…" he laughs humorlessly.

"Yes, Colonel Jaha."

His gaze shifts back to her small hand in his, soothingly warm and strong, for a woman. "I told my _friend_ , Thelonious, that I had these nightmares every night…" he clarifies, deceived.

"I'm sorry. I'm only here to redress your wound."

He smiles weakly to himself. "Of course."

"It would be easier if you were on the bed," she suggests then with raised brows.

"Right," he says fixing the opposite wall morosely.

She helps him off the floor, taking the weight off his wounded leg as much she can, till he's settled back in bed, and when she's finished changing the bandages she offers to bring him tea.

"What's your name?"

"Nurse Griffin," she answers still sitting on his bed, wrinkling her pinafore and her nose, "Abigail."

"Marcus," he concedes to the impudent smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

* * *

 _II_

"That's progress," she mocks when she finds him in bed in the morning. He watches her smirk and frown or laugh with the other nurses or shake her curls at him and smile indulgently, he watches her still feel alive. When she helps him stand, helps him walk, or when he can limp down the hall and she keeps him company, he feels a bit of that strength seep through, like a disease, and before he can prevent it, he's guiltily, dreadfully, breathing again.

Marcus mostly reads and sometimes, when she brings tea, she stops by his bed, smoothing her pinafore and wrinkling her nose, arguing characters and plot points, making his skin itch to touch her and his blood boil, trying to fathom how such an annoying woman could possibly be so appealing. Abigail enjoys teasing him just as much.

"You're doing much better," she says each day as encouragement sharing a smoke by the plane tree when he limps outside the door. He smiles weakly to himself, watching her defy the odds to hope and forcing guilt and loath and sorrow out of his eyes. Till he stops limping and she stops praising in words, and they both start fretting, because he, too, dares to dream of an _after_ , when he'd ask her to dance.

But the telegram comes earlier than her day off. When she steps in the dorm to find him clean shaved and dressed she knows.

"Where to?"

"Does it matter?" he replies, almost calmly, letting her read the dispatch for herself, "I guess this is goodbye."

"Won't you write me?" she asks dismayed.

He smirks looking at his boots and hopes she'd understand. "What for?"

"To tell me when you're back," she replies stubbornly.

But her eyes grow darker as he mentions busy days, already thinking he's got a girl in every port. "What if I don't come back?"

"What if you _do_?" she insists.

"What then?" he dares, staring at her wide eyes and fisting clammy hands, skirting the untold. The question hangs between them, swaying with every breath they don't take, then she clenches her jaw at last, because there are no promises he is willing to make and no dances she should miss for a dead man's words. So she tiptoes into his space, and he has to stop her before their lips brush, holding her there, close like if he'd taken her to that dance hall, forehead touching, fingers entwined.

"We'll think about it then," he says, "You don't think about it now."

She nods and he's gone with words unspoken.

* * *

 _II_

 _Nobody now gives me grief like you used to_.

Marcus volunteers to cover for the Blake kid when he receives a telegram with news of his sister's wedding. He should have been on leave, back in London for a few days, but he has nothing to go back to, his mother died in the ruins of his home in the blitz and he can't remember the taste of vengeance anymore. He would have asked Abigail to the dance hall, he would have forgotten to be afraid and learned the shape of her laughter, or the depth of her strength, maybe. Instead, he reads the closing sentence to her latest letter time and time again, smiling weakly to himself.

Pretending she's not his only motivation is harder and harder, but pansies and daisies are blooming in the cracks of the broken roads and fallen buildings of the continent, and it would take too much courage to die in spring and ruin their spirit. He doesn't write her any of that.

Nobody now gives him hope like she used to.

She hasn't got a reply from him in over a month when they all gather around the radio for Churchill's speech. The nation explodes in choirs and dances in the streets and the houses, and the girls at the hospital all find a partner to awkwardly twirl with, coaxing her into drunk singalongs and infinite rounds of toasts. At dawn, she sits on the floor where he fought his nightmares and waits to be happy as well. But nothing comes, so she smoothes her pinafore and goes back to work.

She's preparing a patient for a radio treatment when he shows up at the hospital, almost three full weeks later, and when she sees him standing in the middle of the hall with all his limbs and guarded eyes it's nothing like she fantasized about. She doesn't run in his arms, she doesn't welcome him with a smile, instead she presses a hand to her mouth to stifle shaking sobs and finally cries.

"I dreamed about you every night," he confesses brushing away tears with kisses and then lifting her off the ground to spin her around, like dancing.

She laughs, kisses him back, with so much fervor they stumble against the wall. When he kisses his way down her neck and she buries her hands in his hair, later, on her kitchen floor, she wrinkles her nose and wonders if they'll both still remember how to use a bed.


	8. Handcuffed

_AN: Prompt for **handcuffs** : turned out it needed a sequel... and then I had a follow-up NSFW idea so, MERRY CHRISTMAS!_

* * *

 _I_

"Oh, _fuck me_ ," he cursed, a growl in her ear.

"Are you always this touchy-feely with girls you just met?"

"Are you always so obnoxious?" he retorted.

Honestly, she hadn't even thought he might know the word, but it seemed he had some more surprises stored, after the _no spare key_ announcement, beside swearing.

"If you'd stop groping me," she pointed out trying to side-eye the man in uniform wrapped around her.

"I'm not, I'm trying to get us out!"

"You mean _in_?" she corrected, finally sending his patience in pieces.

Technically, she was right, they were outside, on the hospital roof, without a coat, in December. And having this much taller, fit, and warm body pressed to her back wasn't as uncomfortable as she might have wanted him to believe. She almost felt like wriggling her butt in spite, just to see his reaction. Still his hand slipped around her waist from time to time, probably to avoid jerking her on the ground anytime he yanked at the handcuffs linking their wrists to the ventilation grate.

It was his fault anyway. _His_ prisoner escaped. Of course his prisoner was also _her_ patient, she reasoned, so a little bit of that horrific current situation was her fault too. They had both underestimated John Murphy and his act, leaving the young pusher time to plot his departure while they were bickering about his release time and transportation arrangements.

He'd taken them by surprise as the elevator doors closed, knocked the officer down and instructed her at gunpoint, then left them chained outside, lifting her white coat, his gun, radio, and both their phones.

Yanking the grate free from the vent conduct proved to be harder than expected, and her wrist was starting to bruise.

"Would you stop for a minute? You're hurting me."

He did stop, panting for the exertion, almost looking contrite. And cute, with his hair mussed by the icy wind and the tip of his nose red. It was completely ineffective anyway, he was exhausted and uncoordinated by now, he must have been thinking about the hell he was going to face for losing the prisoner _and_ his gun once some merciful soul would wander to the roof looking for them. Maybe. They'd tried yelling at the door a hundred feet from them, but no one came before they'd shouted themselves hoarse.

He wobbled when she turned around, blinking rapidly like he couldn't focus. It was freezing cold, their breathing mingling in white puffs between them, her teeth were chattering and there were beads of cold sweat on his forehead.

"Murphy is hardly the criminal," she tried to reassure him, "He probably dumped everything just outside and ran. He's just a kid raised in the wrong neighborhood."

"Even if, it doesn't solve our problem." He hung his head and she felt the jolt of him giving up in her cuffed wrist.

She whimpered involuntarily, sending another dagger his way, and she saw him possibly sag even lower. He checked her bruising wrist, apologizing, but she could see the cuts on his were even worse and took pity on him. She almost hugged him, almost suggested - selfishly - he wrapped her in his arms again, to keep warm, because she was freezing in her scrubs and because she could smell his aftershave still and it was messing with her brain, clearly.

She had no time for anything though, he simply leaned on her, resting his forehead on her shoulder, to her utmost surprise - he kept doing that, surprising her - and it was a reflex to sneak her free arm around him, but when he didn't reciprocate and instead kept leaning on her she panicked. She'd tell anyone else she only panicked after spotting the blood on his collar from the wound on his head but deep within herself she knows alarms started the moment she had to support his much bigger, heavier body, slowly falling on her, and couldn't.

"No no no no no, no please, don't, I can't hold you," she babbled to the fainting officer, "I don't even know your name!" And she found herself sitting on the concrete, back to the ice cold metal of the vent, one arm pinned up above her head, and his whole dead weight between her legs. Cozy.

* * *

 _II_

 _There are worst ways to go than pillowed on soft breasts_.

He came to in an empty room and stared at the anonymous ceiling for a while before realizing hell didn't in fact look like a hospital. His head was pounding but everything was dulled and slow and so when she spoke he startled.

"Hi." Well maybe it _was_ hell after all. He must have been blushing because she flashed him an angelic smile that looked so out of place. She was sitting on the bed next to his, wrapped in blankets, with her hair all over the place, occasionally sipping from a steaming cup. "Don't worry, your head is too thick for Murphy to do real damage," she snickered when he touched at his bandage.

He remembered feeling increasingly sick, and cold, and frustrated by the whole ordeal. She'd been yelling at him and at some point her voice had been nothing more than an echo in his ears and he'd felt dizzy, lightheaded. He remembered being nauseous and weak, so when he'd started to go limp he'd tried to lean on something and that something had been her, warm and soft. He remembered her arm around him and her hand in his hair, and the feel of her meaningless words reaching him through her vibrating ribcage. He had thought he'd been dying.

He had thought a lot of blush-worthy things, pillowed on her breast, lying on the ground between her legs, listening to her heartbeat, but there he was, alive and confused, and most of all annoyed that he owed her, the aggravating doctor, of all people!

"What…"

"I had to dislocate my thumb to get free," she answered his unspoken question, "You did scare me a bit on that roof and times called for drastic measures."

Only then he noticed her bandaged wrist and cringed. Apparently, that amused her because she chuckled and left her bed to come sit on his, leaving blankets and cup behind.

"It's ok, I popped it right back, it'll be sore for a couple of days, nothing more," she said. Then, like she knew how to ease his discomfort - or that he felt any at all - she added: "They were already looking for us, it was a matter of time, anyway." She flickered her hand dismissively. "Your partner, Jaha, caught Murphy as he was running from the ER entrance." Thelonious had been gone five minutes, taking the car around the building to meet them at the door and drive the scumbag downtown. "He's also charged with assault now," she informed him with a giddy glint in her eyes.

Good. But did he still have a job after this?

She laughed. He wished he hadn't hit his head because it resonated in his skull like a box of needles dropped to the floor, but it earned him the sweetest of smiles. Until she noticed he was staring at her breast and it became a sly one.

"You're a boob man, aren't you?" she teased him unabashedly and he pursed his lips feeling his ears aflame.

Before either of them could say anything else, the door opened and a nurse called her - _Dr Griffin_ , he mentally noted - for some sort of emergency, but before she left she ruffled his hair gently and winked.

Was he a boob man? Every man was probably a boob man, he concluded seconds before falling asleep again and dream about her heartbeat.

* * *

 _III_

It took them three weeks and a day to fall into bed. Before that they had _fallen_ against a wall and on his sofa, in two separate occasions.

He'd showed up at the hospital three times the week after the roof incident and she'd failed to find it annoying. Especially after she'd told him she had a teenage daughter from a previous marriage and it hadn't put him off like it had eventually happened anytime she'd tried to date after the divorce.

Admittedly, she hadn't expected their first time to happen, it just... had. Raw and uncoordinated, clothes hastily put aside, teeth and nails scraping flesh and fabric, the uncomfortable sensation of the wall, hard behind her back, erased by a rush of pleasure that hit her harder and faster than she could have ever imagined.

But that had been before she'd even told him about Clarke. They'd straightened their clothes and come out of the hospital's third floor supply closet thinking they had just sated their roof incident residual tension and that would have been it.

And then it had happened again. But that time they'd planned it, albeit not very carefully; it had only got slightly sideways when they couldn't make it to his bedroom before she was up in his arms and he was removing her panties. The sofa had just been closer.

So that was improvement, she thought as she came back from her bliss, panting heavily, his body crushing her to the mattress. She held him in her arms for a few minutes, till their breaths normalized and he went soft still inside her, his head on her heart, her hands in his hair.

He shifted off of her then, grunting, but kept his nose buried in her breasts and sighed contentedly as she chuckled, petting his hair and kissing his brow.

"You _are_ a boob man."

"Am I?" he enquired lazily nuzzling the side of her breast, teasing her, "I suppose I am, but I like your ass too," he concluded squeezing her buttock playfully.

She laughed, but it turned to a moan when he moved up a bit to nibble at her exposed throat.

"I like your neck," he admitted, "And your... what's the name?" he asked flicking his tongue on the hollow of her collarbone.

"My clavicle? You like my collarbone?" she mocked him.

He nodded distractedly, kissing his way down her chest, fondling her breast, enthusiastically nibbling and teasing her nipples one at a time, making her squirm and sigh and claw at his back, helplessly pinned under his weight; then, resting his nose in between to look up at her serious, he confessed into her skin: "I really am a boob man."

She bit her lip disguising her amusement, and simply combed his hair back, thinking he looked way too innocent for what he was currently doing. He moved lower, trailing wet kisses on her stomach and announcing he didn't mind her navel either, which earned him a soft snort and a warning when he finally nuzzled at the ticklish spot between her hipbone and the inside of her leg.

"Kane?"

He shifted down the bed to get better access, caressing her legs, up to her thighs and around to cup her butt and angle her hips. Then he flashed her a devious grin. She was still so tender from the last orgasm the first flick of his tongue sent a jolt through her spine and she whimpered, closing her eyes and opening her mouth in surprise.

"This might be my favorite part, though," he whispered against her soft mound. He flicked his tongue again, and again, and she couldn't repress a groan. That encouraged him, apparently, because he got to eagerly kiss and lap and torture her, her back arching off the bed and her hands twisting the sheets and pulling on his hair. He smiled against her when she very nearly cried in the pillow and he took hold of her hands, linking their fingers and pinning them to the mattress beside her. "Next time I'll handcuff you," he threatened playfully.

She broke off in giggles that turned to moans again when he resumed his work between her legs, and just a few more strokes of his tongue sent her over the edge for the second time, a more gentle wave of bliss washing over her, leaving her panting and spent in his arms when he climbed up the bed again to rest his ear over her heart, placing soft kisses on the swell of her breast.

"Remember a spare key," she mumbled sleepy, threading her fingers in his hair.

"I thought maybe next time we could go for dinner and a movie, or grab a coffee," he suggested.

She feigned not picking up on the hesitation and smiled sweetly, eyes closed. "Are you asking me on a date?"

"I'll bring handcuffs," he replied, "just in case."


	9. I don't want a lot for Christmas

_AN: this was prompted on twitter, based on a manip by beyourownprince on tumblr (that ffnet won't let me link, sorry!)  
_

* * *

"Wait! Marcus..."

"Since when I'm _Marcus_ again?"

He swings around so abruptly she stops in her tracks just behind him and slips on the fresh snow, flailing hands in the air to grab at something - anything - to keep upright and finding the lapels of his coat. She tugs and they both collapse on top of one another on the snow covered concrete parking lot.

 _This company Christmas party couldn't get any worse_ , he thinks massaging his forehead where it bumped against hers as he rolls on his back. "What the hell, Abby!"

"I'm sorry," she mumbles beside him, shaking her head as well.

"For what? Knocking me down or reminding everyone what a terrible person I am for following company guidelines?"

She shots him an angry look directly from her moral high ground. "Forty-eight people could lose their job, Kane, you could have helped me prevent it instead of rowing against! And now you just... quit?"

He can't help notice he's _Kane_ again, so little it took. "You know there is no other option, I tried!"

Snow is still falling steadily and he had a glass too many to safely drive, but her little drunken outburst at the canapé table drew more attention than intended and he chose the coward's way out: from the front door, after a half-hearted attempt at placating high spirits with the announcement of his resignation - which only drew more question marks in their future.

"You tried? You quit!"she shouts back, "You are running away, just like Jaha!"

She struggles to get off the ground with her high heels but he doesn't offer any help and just watches her slip again, cursing under her breath, as he stands and brushes off snowflakes from his trousers, mildly amused.

"Maybe," he says calmly, "But that's the only thing I can do because everything else failed."

"There has to be another way," she states through her teeth. She is angry. And beautiful. He's not sure whether the tears she's blinking back are due to her internal turmoil or brought by the cold wind. It doesn't matter. He finally offers his hand and helps her upright and she stumbles against him, gripping the fabric of his coat for leverage.

"Salvation comes at a price," he whispers.

"What does it even mean?"

"That you have a meeting arranged for next week with LexaCorp. And maybe Ark Inc can get a Christmas miracle."

She is silent for a minute, standing close to him under the snow because they're both tipsy and they're both full of things left unsaid on the verge of spilling past their lips. So he watches her, nose reddened by the cold, arms around one another, digesting his words and their meaning, doing the math on pros and cons of losing independence to a higher power maintaining all current employees, or cutting personnel once more to scratch the pot bottom for another year and see where it takes them.

"Can't do it alone," she says quietly, like a secret.

They're definitely tipsy. With snowflakes falling on her hair and eyelashes she looks like a frozen angel, when one of them melts on her lips he's fool enough to brush it away with a kiss.


	10. Imprint

AN: prompt from tumblr **kabby first hug**

* * *

 _Clarke_ is the first thought that makes it out of her mouth when Jackson finishes dressing her stitched wounds. It falls on Bellamy to find an acceptable answer.

Marcus tries to give them space and a semblance of privacy, maybe, mostly because he saw that particular mix of anger and pain and confusion that goes hand in hand with loss shifting behind his eyes. He didn't want to witness any more. That's why he's waiting outside looking at the dying day while the boy – the young man, he corrects himself – explains, once again, why Clarke won't be home. But the commotion inside Medical and Jackson's voice move his legs before his brain, till he's drawing the plastic curtain aside and Abby is stumbling right into him.

He steadies her instinctively, wrapping an arm around her, and feels her struggle to keep upright, shaking her head against his chest.

"Let me go," she orders through her teeth when he doesn't, "You let her leave alone! You let her leave..."

The accusation is thrown at everyone and no one, he knows, even if she's staring right into his eyes, and Bellamy is the one hanging his head, feeling the axe grazing his neck. Raven stares, brow furrowed in concern from her cot across the room where Jackson had been stitching her up as well before Abby tried to... What was she trying to do? Follow her daughter out the gate? Order a search team to gear up and look for Clarke in the woods at night? He's not sure what reaction he was expecting but it wasn't this... frantic and disheveled and heedless.

"Abby?"

Jackson gently tugs at her elbow, softly speaking of teared stitches and hurting herself further, Bellamy shakes his head, contrite. In his arms Abby still fights his hold, and he does what both younger men have been too afraid to do before: he lifts her off the ground.

It's like picking up the pieces of a puzzle that assembles itself.

Without a grip on the floor she almost instantly stills, startled, reverting her efforts to claw at his shoulders, letting her legs dangle a few inches from the ground and the blood already soaking the bandages on her knees slowly dripping down to her bare feet.

" _You_ are not going anywhere like this," he informs her, annoyingly calm.

Her jeans were torn and cut in different places and had been removed to help Jackson's work, so all she had on when she wriggled her way out of the cot covers were her flimsy cotton underwear, shirt, and the borrowed cardigan that doesn't cover her thighs.

Marcus lifts her up more securely in his arms and holds her gaze until finally she stops fighting, chest heaving, sobbing quietly, but her uncoordinated frenzy is gradually placating, the haze in her look washed away by the tears stubbornly gathering at the corner of her eyes.

"She can't be gone, she didn't even say goodbye," she breathes out as tears threaten to spill out of her lashes, "she didn't say goodbye..."

He opens his mouth to speak but he can only hold her tighter as she reads in his eyes what he's unable to voice.

Of course she didn't, Clarke Griffin loved her mother with the same intensity Abby loved her daughter, she couldn't say goodbye, she wouldn't have been able to leave if she'd tried. She would have been forever trapped inside her guilt.

Abby blinks her tears away as he slowly lowers her to the ground and helps her shuffle back to her cot. She still doesn't understand, he knows, but she's giving up this fight. For now.

Jackson skillfully redresses her bandages, Bellamy exchanges a few softly spoken words with Raven before retreating, and Marcus sits by Abby's bedside for a while, still feeling the weight of her sorrow in his own limbs.

As she drifts off into an exhausted, restless sleep, he tries to remember when the shape of her became so familiar to his own, but nothing comes to mind.

It must have been subtle, building up from much smaller gestures, touches his memory erased but his body cherished, collected, stored away year after year, waiting for the moment they'd fill up into a tangible presence.

He falls asleep still at her bedside that night, contemplating the imprint of her soul nestled into his.


	11. Arkadia (Imprint II)

_AN: tumblr propt **Abby being comfortable around Kane and how he's grown to be her safe place**_

 _This could also be read as a sort of sequel to chapter 10  
_

* * *

For the first week she's bedridden and sulky. But there is too much to do and too much to think about during her waking hours to pretend she's not exhausted by dinner time.

She tries not to feel crowded, but between Jackson watching her like a hawk and Marcus coming to Medical with an excuse or another every few hours, on the fourth day she snaps.

"I'd rather you were out there looking for Clarke!" she mutters that morning. She knows Bellamy volunteered to go after her daughter, she knows Marcus let him take Monroe and Miller to the dropship, she knows Marcus scheduled a mission to Mount Weather for supplies, and she knows everyone leaving camp has orders to report about any trace of Clarke. But _she_ 's forced in bed, _she_ 's alone and in pain, and she's still chancellor...

Marcus leaves her with his pad and a list of topics to discuss in the next meeting to ponder on, then graciously bows out of her space.

She doesn't see him until after sunset for a disappointingly short briefing.

The next morning he shows her a preliminary map of a bigger settlement he must have worked on the previous night, with notes gathered from different departments on improvements to be done at the crashed Ark and entire new structures to be built, then leaves her to think about it for the rest of the day, which strangely makes her uncomfortable and peeved without her being able to pinpoint it on anything. She blames it on the ache but she looks at the meagre amount of painkillers they brought back from the mountain, and refuses to take any.

Marcus doesn't show up after dinner. Nor the next morning.

Jackson doesn't comment on her subtly veiled annoyance, but lets her grab crutches after lunch to step outside and follow Sinclair to see what the hydraulic system he designed would look like.

Still, Marcus is nowhere to be seen. Something inside of her is still seething in the late afternoon, but she's not sure it's anger anymore. Was she ever angry? She asked him to leave her alone and he _did_ , the cheek of him... What was she expecting?

If she's angry it's at herself.

Following Sinclair's train of thoughts is hard; harder with the persistent pang of pain in her bones and the feeling she's gasping for air. They're nose to the sky, discussing the possibility to strip down what they can reach of the standing part of the Ark wheel before the weather turns to worst, when she hears his voice at the gate. Turning to look at him makes her grit her teeth and blink tears away. It's only slightly anticlimactic to have Sinclair standing there, or Bellamy and Miller a few feet away, or dozens of other people around; he stops in his tracks, ears and tip of his nose red with cold, but still fails to correct the look of worry on his face to something more neutral. He shakes his head woefully.

She didn't even know he was out there looking for Clarke. Her breath catches. Because she asked him to. Stupid, stupid man.

It doesn't matter. Because the pain in her knees is making her nauseous, the chilly wind gave her a headache and the force with which she's gripping the crutches, paired with the cold, cracked the brittle skin at her knuckles and she's sure she'd be embarrassing herself if he weren't there to collect her once again.

She must wobble because Sinclair reaches for her as Marcus does, and she excuses herself back inside the Ark where he follows.

"Don't tell Jackson," she admonishes leaning against the wall, out of breath, "He'll never let me leave the bed again."

"Maybe you shouldn't," he snorts.

"Shut up Marcus." It comes off harsher than intended and her cheeks flush with frustration when he obeys, looking at his boots.

She's never made a secret of her wishes, but she's never had anything granted before. She took it. And now that someone – he, of all people – is trying to give her what she wants, it's... unsettling. It feels wrong. This is not how they work, he should be holding her back, talk her out of nonsense, challenge her...

She feels tears prickle at her eyes. All she has to do is ask. But she's been vocal about space she doesn't need, and silences she doesn't know how to fill, instead.

"I can't take another step," she confesses meekly.

Noting about this feels right. His hands are icy and he's stiff, almost mechanical in his movements, his stubble stabs her cold sensible skin and his breath tickles her, but when he lifts her up she knows she'd never let anyone else do it. She buries her nose in his neck and memorizes the rich smell of earth and mist and the miles he covered for Clarke.

He doesn't carry her to Medical, her room is closer and it has a door, and once it's shut behind them she lets her tears soak the collar of his shirt as he holds her, swaying lightly, till she's drained and lightheaded and limp.

"You'll never find her," she sobs, trying pointlessly not to sound desperate.

His arms tightens around her and he says something that she didn't even consider: "You think we're not looking hard enough." It's a statement she hears from his rib cage, only slightly louder than his heartbeat, and it sounds like defeat and resignation. A failure she has no intention to burden him with.

Abby sniffs and lets out a suffered breath. "No," she answers softly, "She doesn't want to be found."

And she'll have to live with it if it means he'll stand by her side.

A week later, Raven stomps out of the new Medical room on her own two legs with the attitude of someone ready to take over the world (which Abby makes a goal for her own recovery). She comes back to camp after two days, with Monty and Miller, on a humvee, and Marcus draws a bigger map of the area on the meeting room board.

Two weeks after that, there's still no news on Clarke, but there's a piano in the hangar and a couch in the meeting room.

"At least you won't have a crick in your neck next time you fall asleep working, like yesterday," he tells her only half joking.

Instead, she purses her lips and instructs him and Bellamy on which point of the wall exactly the couch should be.

A month later, there's a flu outbreak and she sleeps in Medical most nights, but when she leaves, exhausted, her feet drag her to the meeting room more often than her own bed.

Tonight the light is on but no one's there. The table is scattered with old maps and books and the board is filled with new names and numbers. The kids came home from sector four before sunset. No news.

She spent a whole year living alone, in their quarters up in space, after Jake's execution and Clarke's detention. A whole year surrounded by memories only and the ghost of a life she wanted to bury on the ground. Instead, she's left slowly digging her own grave, working impossible shifts to meet the demands of a community that doesn't feature the only person she's done all of this for. All in all, she doesn't see much improvement.

Abby sits on Marcus' chair and trails her fingers on the pages of an open book on minerals with doodles on the margins and handwritten notes she recognizes as his. _Arkadia_ , she reads, and for some reason her sleep deprived mind lets her toy with the idea of a mythical peaceful and prosperous place. She smiles wistfully, when her nostrils fill with peppermint.

"Too cliché?" He's standing in the doorway, sipping herbal tea from the mug he went to refill.

"It's a nice utopia for a radioactive wasteland," she concedes turning to look at him.

He sighs, stepping in her space to set the mug next to hers.

She doesn't have to wonder why this is her favorite room, her blanket is neatly folded on the couch, his jacket is draped on the chair, her mug is still on the desk where she left it in the morning, boxes of medicines to arrange are mixing with the flora samples the kids took back so far. And it smells like peppermint whenever he's around.

It's their space. A lived room, not a dead one.

"Should we expect genetic anomalies from the next generation on the ground?" he asks cautiously.

She shakes her head. "I don't know." She can feel the warmth from his body, standing as close as possible without touching, comforting and familiar. "But it's a concern for another day," she says at last, leaving his chair for the couch. She loosens her boots and tugs her legs up under her, lazily browsing the book library on her pad.

She'll be asleep in minutes, swallowed by memories of another time, and he'll cover her with a blanket, letting her rest and pretending not to know why she's not in her bed. He's getting better at that.

She should be careful, she thinks just before falling asleep, he might realize she needs him more than he needs her.


	12. Need (Imprint III)

_AN: sort of companion piece/sequel to chapter 11, from a tumblr prompt **different point of view**_

* * *

Abby Griffin, he learns, doesn't need anyone's help. All she needs is Clarke Griffin, safe and well, and no one can give her that except Clarke herself.

Marcus watches her drag herself through the day, week after week, burying her fears and her sorrow under everyone else's. There is too much to do at camp to ensure they don't starve or die of exposure during the winter, all he can do is try not to burden her further. He doesn't know exactly what to do to help her so he does what she asks, but even he can see that's not what she needs.

It takes some adjusting at first, on both sides, but it works, and even if her insistence they talk about camp issues while walking seemed like a terrible idea since she was still in recovery, now he understands when to take her hand if she barely flexes her fingers, or when she needs to sit and rest but won't say it out loud, or when she just wants to not be alone with herself.

Abby Griffin doesn't need a friend, but he tells himself he'll be nearby just in case.

Thirty-seven days after the mountain fell, came the snow.

They have a stable, and horses, and walls now, and there is a module they salvaged from the standing wheel of the crashed ship they repurposed as a watchtower. Most nights, you'd find Marcus Kane in the new meeting room, working on maps and reports till Abby comes by to say goodnight, or to share a cup of tea over council's decisions to be made; some nights, when the chancellor sleeps early, he trades shifts, and you'd see him up in the watchtower, looking out to the dark woods covered in snow. Which is where she finds him now.

"What are you hiding from?" she questions a little out of breath, a little chidingly.

"I'm not, I'm on duty," he replies with pursed lips, knowing too well she wouldn't believe him.

"Really, night shift at the watchtower mid-winter?! And you chose it..." she teases. She's still only halfway up the ladder, and it must have cost her to even climb that far – because she's doing better with her injuries, but the snow brought a whole different chill in their bones, he feels it in the wrist he broke as a kid.

"Why are _you_ here?" he counters propping his rifle up against the parapet to help her up, "I thought you went to bed."

It's so cold their breaths come out in visible puffs and the silence up there is eerie, disturbed only by the seemingly too loud ruffling of their clothes as he lifts her up for the last few steps, almost effortlessly. She's lighter than she has any right to be, and he mentally notes to make sure she doesn't forget to eat her meals in the next few days.

"I did, but I couldn't sleep," she says earnestly, "Miller told me you were here."

He shifts on his feet as they both look out to the silent woods, shoulders bumping gently every so often.

"Anything interesting?" she enquires softly.

Marcus wonders if she can guess he picks the watchtower shift instead of ground patrol hourly rounds in the hope one night he'll be the first to see Clarke coming home. He doesn't tell her, but the wistful look in her eyes as they sweep the darkness beyond the wall tells him she might know anyway.

"Nothing."

She shivers. She doesn't have a coat on and she shouldn't be out so late with only a cardigan and the shawl she keeps on the meeting room couch (for those times she doesn't feel like sleeping). He fusses over her, brushing hands up and down her arms muttering under his breath and offering herbal tea from his thermos, but she smirks at him almost amused and suggests unperturbed: "A gentleman would give me his jacket."

He snorts, disbelieving. "It's cold for me too, you know," he retorts.

But he still unzips his coat and watches her eyebrows raise in surprise and her hands fly at his lapels. "Marcus, I was joking, I don't want your jacket!" she yelps as he pulls her against him and zips up the coat again behind her back, lifting her hair in a ponytail to avoid catching strands in the clutch.

"Better?"

She giggles softly against his chest and he can feel her eyelashes on his collarbone when she snuggles in, sneaking her arms around him inside the coat. "Better," she confirms.

He marks the date in his mental calendar because she never giggled before, not since they landed on Earth, not since they sent the kids down, probably not since Jake...

Abby Griffin only cries behind closed doors but even her giggles sound heartbroken.

It doesn't last long anyway, she is serious when she speaks again: "Housing will be a problem soon enough."

"Did you crawl out of bed and in the snow to talk about building?"

He's not sure which one of them started swaying, but the motion is lulling and her body is warm against his, gradually releasing the tension of the day with steady, tickling breaths mingling and dissolving around them. It feels like they're wrapped in a bubble of darkness and silence, with his arms around her small body and her heartbeat synchronizing with his, and he's suddenly aware of the danger that lies within when she doesn't answer.

What else should they talk about, bundled up in his coat, watching the woods with mixed hopes? Not the way she grips his shirt, not her lips ghosting on his throat, not how everything about her affects him.

She sighs instead, burying the cold tip of her nose in the hollow of his neck. "I don't want to sleep, but Jackson banned me from Medical till dawn," she admits quietly after a while.

Abby Griffin doesn't need a lover, she needs a night of rest without nightmares about her daughter.

"You haven't slept in at least twenty-seven hours," he reminds her.

She lifts her head to look at him with a little huff: "Are you tracking me, Kane?" she asks barely concealing an impudent, knowing smirk.

He chuckles at the familiar phrasing and mocking tone, not daring to look down at her tired eyes and pursed lips. _Someone has to_ , he thinks holding her closer. She doesn't even have time or energy to neatly braid her hair since they crash landed, she just lets it fall on her shoulders in a tangle of untamed frizzy curls. Like Clarke did.

When the snow melts, they start building huts and cabins and draw a patch for growing vegetables. They even figure out a project for communal showers.

Marcus tries not to make it a distraction, but whenever she sits at his desk to go over reports in the meeting room he can't help lingering near, enjoying the perfume of chamomile that she seems to carry. She started washing her hair with it, because it's supposed to make it blonder, lighter – like Clarke's – but she doesn't let herself have time to dry it out in the sun like everybody else and hastily ties it in a ponytail when it's still wet to go back to work.

Abby Griffin is desperately grasping at the dreams she once had, burying the realities of what they are living with exhaustion, and Marcus sometimes tries to imagine a life where Jake Griffin made it to the ground instead, and Clarke is back home in her mother's arms, because that's the only image of a happy, smiling Abby Griffin he can concoct.

He can only watch her dance around him at her pace, stealing glances and whiffs of chamomile from time to time, trying to make it up to her for not being the one she wants by being the one she needs.


	13. The skirt is short on purpose

_AN: tumblr prompt (come join in the fun, I'm akachankami anywhere else)  
_

* * *

 **"The skirt is short on purpose."**

Marcus thinks he's heard it wrong, because Indra never talks about fashion, or about other women, least of all with him. But then she quietly sips her margarita and he follows her eyes to Abby Griffin, laughing on the other side of the living-room to something Raven is showing her on her phone. And the skirt does seem shorter than he's used to seeing her wearing.

Granted, he's only seen her wear scrubs and lab coats so far. And her Navy uniform, of course, when she testified in court last month.

He stares. He knows he's staring but her hair is not gathered in a ponytail or a braid, it falls freely in soft, light curls that bounce on her shoulders every time she moves. And the skirt is definitely short.

"On purpose? What purpose?" he asks frowning a bit, unable to stop staring at her slender, long, bare legs.

He perceives rather than sees Indra's jaw muscle clenching, right before she downs her margarita and mutters _I'm out of here_.

It only becomes clear a scotch and five bitter shots later when he tries to puzzle together how he went from the couch to Admiral Jaha's bathroom, frantically looking through his cupboard for a condom, as Abby perches on the sink with a suggestive smirk and black lace panties already dangling from her finger.


	14. I'm going to need you

_AN: tumblr prompt I am so late to fill in, sorry!  
_

* * *

 **"I'm going to need you to put on some underwear before you say anything else."**

"We have- Mom, it's not what it looks like- we... we have swimsuits on," Clarke stammers trying to get out the foam filled pool and slipping on the edge, splashing back in beside her friends, all nodding and mumbling apologies with red cheeks and bright eyes looking everywhere but at her.

Abby sighs. The whole backyard is a mess of soft pink coloured foam dancing like snow carried by the night breeze, or trailing around, peeking through the grass and the flat stones path. Everywhere she looks there are beer bottles and cans, plastic plates and glasses scattered on the lawn and her poor rose bushes... Abby grits her teeth, looking like a crack of doom angel with the backlight from the kitchen, and Raven turns the music down a notch but still smirks in her glass at Monty collecting foam in front of him just in case.

They _were_ up to no good, after all...

Abby clucks her tongue, skimming her eyes on half a dozen guilty looking kids in her pool, to stop on her daughter again, finally in front of her and dripping pink foamy water all over the porch. Somehow even her hair looks a little pink and Abby can't help furrowing her brow at the horror that the next laundry will be.

"I was out for one day and-"

"You were supposed to be gone the whole weekend! What happened?"

"Don't try to change subjects, Clarke," she admonishes, reviewing in her head what kind of punishment would take her out of the embarrassment of explaining in front of her daughter's friends why she's not on a cruise as planned.

Mostly, she's discarding idea after idea, knowing too well Clarke is not the first teenager in the family to have thrown a party in her parent's absence. After all, ruining their spring break sending the kids home seems unnecessarily harsh.

She's already announcing she'll retreat upstairs and requesting to keep the music low when she's interrupted by the doorbell. At half past midnight it can only mean trouble, and every head turns to the front door with round eyes.

Abby sighs, again. "Let me handle this."

"No!" Clarke grabs her wrist but her hands are wet and slippery and Abby is already scampering down the hall, "Mom, wait!" opening the door to a uniformed man.

"Good evening, madam," says the stern looking officer quite curtly, "We got a call for disturbance of the peace in the neighborhood."

How to counter with that when everyone can hear a dubstep mix of _Moves Like Jagger_ all the way from her lit backyard. She lets herself squirm partially hidden behind the door, but before she can answer Clarke is beside her (dripping on the carpet as well, she can't help noticing) and judging by the commotion behind her back her friends are out of the pool and running down the hall on their wake, splashing pink water on her parquet.

"It's all under control now," is all she manages to say before Monroe is gently pushing her aside to open the door wide and Harper is grabbing the policeman by the belt, hollering for Nathan.

"He's here!" the girls announce.

"What? Wait!" The man does look surprised when the girls pull him inside and his hands shot to the belt that wet slippery fingers are already stripping off of him as they drag him across the hall to the kitchen and the pool in the backyard.

Clarke is in front of her before she can follow: "Mom, I can explain, we were supposed to go to the club for Nathan's stag party but they wouldn't let us all in because... because they caught Monty and Monroe's fake IDs, and Raven had that foam machine prototype to test anyway, you were supposed to be away and I would have cleaned up everything, I swear, everything before you were back! The stripper was Harper and Monroe's idea, they arranged it, I-"

"Hold on a second, is that a stripper in my backyard?"

"I- well, there were supposed to be two actually..."

Abby frowns, speechless, mirroring her daughter expression for very different reasons.

"Someone called for the police?" says a husky voice behind them just then.

Leaning on the still open door frame is a sun kissed skin uniformed young man, shifting mirror sunglasses down his freckled nose to wink at them when they turn around wide eyed. Behind him, a young girl with dark hair in complicated braids and steely green eyes pops a chewing gum, swinging handcuffs around her finger.

"Oh my God..."

Both Griffin women hurry to the backyard to find a half naked cop flailing in pink foam, deflecting prying hands and joking along with the other kids pushing him around.

"Oh my God," repeats Clarke with a soft giggle for the uncharacteristic scene.

When he finally reemerges, the poor guy is down to his drenched underwear and socks, his discarded blues floating in pink foam at the edge of the pool.

"I'm so sorry," offers Abby handing him a clean bath towel and eyeing the two other uniforms that followed the commotion suit to the pool, in an attempt to avoid looking at the flimsy material of wet underwear sticking to skin.

"Looks like this party's already started," comments the female fake cop with a wolfish grin.

Her partner shrugs. "Let's jump in, Lexa! Who's the party guy?"

Clarke is already diving in foam again, shoving Miller in the middle of the circle of people as her mother picks up what's left of the only _real_ police officer's soaked belongings from the grass. "I am _so_ sorry," she repeats shaking the water off one of his shoes and inviting everyone to a chorus of not very heartfelt sounding apologies.

Unexpectedly, he smiles back, securing the towel around his middle. "I wish it was the first time I'm mistaken for a stripper, especially this time of year," he chuckles "But to be pulled into a foam pool is a first."

She bites her lip, cringing. "I'm-"

"Sorry, I know," he interrupts her more business like, "Mrs?"

Rivulets of pinky water drop from his dark hair and trail down his chest. A riveting sight... At least till he combs his fingers through his curls to squeeze it all out and she notices his frown. "Griffin," she manages.

"I'm Officer Kane," he says, "I hope this color will wash away, I've never seen a foam machine quite like that," he comments pointing to Raven's assembled, unauthorized and unapproved device on the side of the pool.

Abby blushes. There are underage teens drinking alcoholics in a pool filled with homemade pink foam, two strippers and a naked cop in her backyard. How did she stoop so low? She thinks he can probably see the gears in her head spin faster as she tries to come up with a plan that won't end up with her paying a ridiculously expensive fine or some _other_ responsible adult bailing them all out of jail.

"We can talk inside," he suggests instead, "you don't wanna be a witness to _that_."

"No," agrees Abby with a last look at her daughter's now pink hair as she's lifted up above the stripper's head and dropped back into the water in a chorus of whistles and laughters, "I don't think I want."

He smiles back at her sympathetically and follows her to the kitchen.

Abby has a very solid explanation about how things escalated from there, later, when Clarke wanders back into the house at dawn for a glass of water. A _very_ solid one... as solid as Marcus Kane's body pressed against hers, or his hand cupping her bottom inside her jeans, or his...

"Mom?"

But she is too distracted and surprised, and puzzled by the turn of events to voice any of it, so she just stares back at Clarke, gaping.

Her daughter squints at them, tangled in each other and flushed with lust and... _pudency_.

"I know what it looks like, Clarke, but-"

Despite the fact she's still fully clothed and _Officer Kane_ is back into his now washed and pressed uniform, she must admit Clarke has a point in echoing her earlier words with a hint of sarcasm:

"I'm going to need you to put on some underwear before you say anything else."

* * *

 _AN: thanks for reading! There's another prompt in line but it sort of escalated from oneshot to full on background story to develop, it might get lenghty... and it might take a little while longer_

 _Nevertheless, it's still more fun than frustration to think about my OTP prompts, so if you have any ask away on my tumblr: akachankami_


	15. That thing with feathers

_AN: prompt from tumblr about a **continuation to the 'Let's call it hope' scene**. Here you go_

* * *

Hope.

Marcus Kane has a tendency to forget the very concept even exists because, if he has to save lives by the number, he cannot stop to take _hope_ into account. Quantity over quality.

But that was before he was stripped of the privilege of opinion over humanity's future. Scratch that, his own future.

He made ghastly arrangements based on that alone, thinking he was doing the right thing for them all, when _them all_ was still the only notion of humanity that they had, when their world was narrow, artificial and unforgiving, when he still dreamed of Earth, empty, scorched and far away.

Like hope.

He can't look away now. Abby's warm hands still mid-air between them, fingers curling around whirling thoughts, and he just can't look away. He feels like on the verge of a cliff opening on the unknown: there is a truth between her lips and her eyes, hanging on an eyelash, but it's already blurring at the edges.

Quantity over quality seems like a very bleak idea now since the majority of his people voted for Pike. (Which, in Abby's biased point of view, tremendously decreases the quality of it. He must bitterly admit she's got a point there).

But what can hope do when a quick reality check points towards his biggest failure? And what should he hope for? Absolution?

Abby composes her features and diverts her eyes, dropping her hands in his, casually, as casually as he brushes his thumbs on her knuckles like feathers. Like butterflies in the pit of his stomach when he catches a light blush that shifts his thoughts on its axis towards a more personal kind of wish.

Perhaps he's looking beyond its meaning.

Perhaps he doesn't need absolution for the past or the future, perhaps that's what her lips on his skin felt like, and perhaps the truth lies in the blurred edges where their hands rest.

He stares at Abby, a breath away, and quantity and quality merge into a whole. Just one.

Abby. The tune he doesn't have the lyrics for, but that makes him dance light on his feet. He catches his timid smile before it spreads into anything inappropriate for a man about to risk his neck, and stands up, pulling on their joined hands to keep her in his space.

She doesn't step back but he doesn't linger. "We have work to do," he says as departing words, and their breath mingles.

She hums and nods once. She's all the hope he will ever need to boost his shaken resolutions and weary limbs into action again.


	16. I'm going to need you, too

_AN: sequel (but not really) to " **I'm goint to need you to put some underwear on before you say anything else** " which is chapter 14 and yes, you might need to read that one first because this is basically what happened right before and in the middle of it. But it's pure unadulterated **crack** , be warned ;)_

* * *

She can't.

She just can't do it, she watches people passing by, dragging their trolleys and bags up the ramp on the other side of the fence, making up stories for every one of them as she rubs the place on her finger where the ring used to be. She watches them from behind her windshield and realizes she has no interest in knowing any of them. Not like this anyway.

Of course there is the two thousand dollar ticket advanced payment to take into account, but ultimately she decides she doesn't want to be on a boat for three days and four nights and be forced to socialize. And even if Diana Sydney found her third husband on board one of these _single cruises_ , it doesn't mean Abby Griffin will be as lucky... Or as easily pleased.

So why did she purchase that ticket in the first place? What made her think it was a good idea to try and have a romantic life again, after two years? _Nothing, it was a terrible idea, Abby, look at yourself, sitting in your car for over an hour at the docks parking lot like a drug dealer_ , her conscience lectures.

Maybe after the divorce she still isn't ready, or maybe she was never made for hook-ups. Or perhaps it's another commitment she doesn't want in the end and all she needs is a one-night-stand to take off the edge. The ship horn finally makes her snap out of it. She starts the car and drives away, mentally cursing herself.

Leaving the port behind is easier said than done though, she has a lot of time stuck in traffic to keep replaying in her head just how awkward it's going to be not having any real good plausible explanation as to why exactly she is back home for spring break when she's promised Clarke she could have the house for a sleepover just a few hours ago. The more she thinks about it the less probable her lies sounds: _I lost my (electronic) ticket and they wouldn't let me on board_. Which is easily debunked because she has multiple e-mails with the tracked purchase she could pull up on her phone in a few seconds. _I was late for boarding_. Except she's left the house after lunch, four hours before the scheduled meet-up time. _I waited for over two hours but the cruise ship never docked_. She mentally slaps herself for this one.

Abby ponders her options over chicken quesadilla in a part of town she never wanders by chance, and ultimately settles on _emergency call from the hospital_ as she drives home after discarding any notion she might spend even more money on a hotel room to cover up this silly attempt at living it up.

It all backfires when she stumbles on her daughter's impromptu foam pool party, the two fake cop strippers and the naked policeman in her backyard.

She's a forty-two year old cardiothoracic surgeon, and yet all she can manage to utter past her lips in front of a half naked cop - potentially charging tipsy underage teens under her care - are empty apologies Officer Kane brushes off (like the pink water from his curls) nonchalantly.

Is this the first sign of a middle age crisis? Temporary (hopefully) alexithymia and the lexicon extension of a five years old? Are her hormones going crazy already?

"Don't worry," Officer Kane reassures her once they're in the kitchen, "I see the kids are just having some fun, the music is low enough, and there's an adult supervising."

"I- Yes, of course, I am. Here. Now." Stammering sure won't help, he must think her an idiot by now. She fights the blush creeping up her neck, unsuccessfully.

"Right, I need to..." he says pointing at the front door on the other end of the hall, leaving the sentence to her imagination, and backs off wrapped in Monroe's Coca Cola beach towel, dripping on her hardwood floor as she nods politely and clueless.

He must be the most relaxed, down to earth policeman she's ever met, she muses, they might have just dodged disorderly conduct charges, assault on a police officer, underage alcohol consumption... not to mention a more accurate check on Raven's handmade foam machine and those young dancers in her pool. She can't believe their luck. _Her_ luck?

She goes about the motions in autopilot, picking up discarded clothes from the floor, piling up dirty dishes in the sink, mind still reeling in the downfall of her spring break plans, scratching her bare ring finger. When the underdressed cop steps back in, she's already made coffee so she offers him a cup.

"No thanks," he declines, "I should just head back downtown, I radioed the situation," he informs her lifting the device in his hand, "And- I'm not going to fine you," he adds barely containing a mocking smirk at her round eyes, "I was vague enough in my report on how I got into a pool. I just need my uniform back and I'll leave."

Abby chases from her mind speculations on her neighbours gossiping about a naked man coming and going from her front door for weeks after tonight, and furrows her brow at the request: "Oh, I put it in the washing machine. It'll just take about an hour with the short program and the dryer."

It's his turn to stare back dumbfounded. "What?"

"What?" she repeats with that feeling of being stuck in a neverending loop of horrors. What happened to the ever confident woman who purchased a cruise ticket last month? Why is this guy making her feel like a schoolgirl? "Oh, you can obviously send a professional laundry bill to this address, afterwards," she offers waving her coffee cup in the air to emphasize the self-evidence of the statement and cover up the ever deepening blush.

He just stands in the middle of her kitchen, blinking off drops from his dark hair. That tips her off on how ridiculous the whole situation is.

"I'm still on duty," he points out. "I might get another call, I can't wait around for the laundry."

 _Oh_. Of course. What was she thinking? She giggles. She _never_ giggles.

Somehow, the lopsided smirk and the one raised brow look tell her he thinks she's _flirting_.

Is she? Inadvertently, that is. She doesn't even know how to flirt anymore, God, this is awkward. She should have thought best to send the policeman out the door before he changed his mind and started asking questions and IDs, and yet she's offering coffee and doing laundry, all around making a fool of herself.

Was she really flirting? It's official: she's lost her mind.

He frowns.

"There are two other perfectly dry uniforms discarded in my backyard," she dares suggesting, sipping from her cup, never breaking eye contact.

His gaze wanders to the window but he catches up quickly with her idea and snorts a strangled, embarrassed laugh. "It's not- those are not... real," he chokes out, hands on his hips and bare chest heaving in front of her.

"I wouldn't know the difference," she reasons, "and it's just in case, anyway, you might spend the night sitting in my kitchen and not get a call."

Which seems to be an attractive idea after all.

"Wouldn't you have civilian clothes to lend me, perhaps?"

Unfortunately Jake, her ex-husband, had taken everything with him when he left to be a freelance war photoreporter in what was his own middle age crisis, so Abby watches Kane exchanging a couple of words with the freckled boy in the USA flag tanga from her porch, the kids laugh at what he says and Raven mouths something at her she can't understand (but Clarke is blushing so it can't be anything she needs to hear).

"This just doesn't feel right," mutters Officer Kane, wriggling inside the tight shirt once he's out of the bathroom, ten minutes later, "Why are these pockets fake, who needs fake pockets?"

Abby chuckles, resting her cup of coffee on the kitchen island to straighten his collar. "You look just fine."

He towel dried his hair and they are now a mass of curls sticking out in every direction, giving a certain boyish look about him that Abby finds even more appealing. She resists the urge to finger comb them back and busies herself picking invisible lints instead.

"I could be getting into trouble for this, you already have a bad influence on me, Mrs Griffin," he says faking seriousness.

She keeps a poker face but can't help chewing on her bottom lip. "I don't know, Officer, you seemed to be a rebel before I even met you."

She does steal a grin this time and he accepts a cup of coffee after that, sitting on a stool by the kitchen island.

"So, which one of them is yours?" he asks pointing at the foam covered teens in her pool.

"Clarke is the blonde one. With pink hair now," she corrects herself sitting beside him on another stool.

He smiles spotting her daughter on the side of the pool with another girl's arm flung around her shoulders, cheering on as the boys jump in foam producing various amounts of splashed water on her rose bushes.

For a few minutes they watch silently, sipping coffee, then he asks: "Did you know about the strippers?"

What would be the right answer to that, muses Abby. If she says she did, she's going to look like an irresponsible, immoral parent, if she says she didn't then... she's probably another clueless, outdated human like any other parent of teens.

"I didn't," she confesses.

"Don't worry, Bellamy and Lexa are good kids, they mostly dance and put on a show but nothing out of boundaries."

Abby turns to look at the cop with renewed wonder. "You knew them."

Kane's lips stretch into a little benevolent smirk. "As I said, I've been mistaken for a stripper before. We bumped into each other a couple times last year, they're good kids," he repeats looking right at her. "I don't want to get them in trouble over nothing."

"I knew you've left me off the hook too easily."

Kane shifts on the stool. "Well, there's coffee and... laundry service..." he chuckles.

"You make it sound like I'm bribing you," she taunts.

Then something catches his eye and his hand comes covering hers, stopping her fingers rubbing at her absent ring. "You'll hurt yourself," he chides gently.

She blushes almost instantly, a shiver filled with panic and shame travels down her spine and leaves her chilly. He's a cop, he's trained to be observant and he's probably curious by nature, she tells herself, his look is more expectant than inquisitive and she wonders if that's how weak people crack under pressure and confess crimes.

She licks her lips. "I've been divorced for two years now, but I've kept wearing the ring to avoid unwanted attention at work." He nods, and she realizes how it might sound, so quickly adds: "But I- I was supposed to be on a cruise this weekend and it seemed inappropriate to wear it," she says as if it should clarify anything.

If his squint is anything to go by, she's only poking at his curiosity even more.

And now, how to explain _that_ without spilling all about her not really knowing about her daughter's party relocation or the nature of the cruise she was supposed to attend, and somehow still sound like a trustworthy citizen?

"Long story," she lies.

"Well, we do have forty-five more minutes," he presses now intrigued, a little mesmerized smile teasing the corners of his mouth, "How did you favor supervising a teen pool party over a cruise vacation?"

She should have decided first if she was up to one-night-stands or only on the lookout for committed relationships after all. Did she keep the ring on for so long because she was still in love with her ex husband? Does taking it off mean she's not anymore? What's the difference between conversing with strangers on a cruise ship dock and chatting with a police officer over coffee in her kitchen?

"I'm picky about the company," she admits in the end.

He hums his understanding, leans on the counter and sips his coffee.

Abby feels that treacherous flush creep up her chest again. Did he take it as a compliment or an insult? If a few minutes ago she was afraid to come off shamelessly self-advertising, now she fears he thinks her uninterested. The dangerous ground starts when she touches at the question _why do you want him to think you're interested, but at the same time not easy?_

His radio chooses that moment to croak alive: "Come in," he answers.

The operator asks if he's available to check on an attempted property entrance not far from there and she thinks she reads a flash of panic passing in his eyes before he frowns and answers already standing.

Abby follows him to the door as he collects more information, she grabs a sharpie from the grocery list whiteboard on the wall then claims his hand.

"What's that?" he asks skeptical, looking at the writing on his palm.

"My cell phone number, so you won't have to ring the doorbell and wake anyone, later..." she babbles feeling increasingly stupid. "That's how Clarke sneaks out when she doesn't want her friends to wake me up with pebbles."

He laughs almost shyly, promises to be back soon, and drives away.

Abby wanders back in the kitchen, scratching her head at the whole absurd situation. Boldly throwing herself at some handsome stranger seems so unlikely of her, and wasn't that exactly why she ran away from the docks a few hours earlier? What's with Officer Kane that's making her all hot and bothered? _Hormones_ , she concludes, it must be an early menopause or something. Something...

He smells nice, she observes. Which doesn't mean anything, Dr. Jaha smells of overpriced cologne but she never felt the urge to touch his hair. Maybe it's his hair. _How shallow can you be, Abby_ , she scolds herself washing the two used cups of coffee.

When she hears the beeping of the washing machine, autopilot kicks in again and twenty minutes later she's already ironed and neatly folded Kane's uniform like the perfect housewife she never was.

The music is turned lower and lower in her backyard, till Monty brings out his guitar and his friends all gather around to sing along.

Abby mostly leaves them be, peeking from time to time through the kitchen curtains. She takes a book to the living-room and reads by the window where she can see the street from her couch. That's how she sees Kane's police car pull over a little over three in the morning and she greets him opening the door before he can knock, or text.

"You're back!"

In a completely over dramatic gesture neither of them planned nor imagined before it happened, they run into each other's arms like long lost lovers in a silent movie.

"What happened?" he asks concerned. Barefeet, Abby fits perfectly under his chin and before he pulls away to look her in the eyes her heart skips a beat.

Feeling incredibly stupid, Abby is forced to admit: "Nothing." And like that wasn't enough, she adds: "I was worried."

He tilts his head and confusion transforms into surprise. "Oh."

"I- I am so sorry, I sound ridiculous, I just- _Attempted property entrance_ sounded-"

He smiles back. "No, it's- It was only a stray dog wandering in the neighborhood backyards, it took so long because I had to wait for Animal Control," he shrugs.

She's still smoothing invisible wrinkles on his shirt and she forces herself to stop touching him for no reason. "Did it work?"

"It fooled everyone."

They both grin at each other and she _is_ looking at his lips. Who is this Abigail Griffin ready to kiss strangers without a thought for consequences? But he's looking at her too and he can't be thinking she's still trying to make him forget to report the mess he stepped into when she first opened the door, and he can't be thinking she's used to seducing strangers because she clearly isn't very good at it.

Her ears burn up and his chuckles reverberate through his ribcage right to her core.

"Don't laugh at me, I haven't done this in twenty years at least," she pouts shuffling on the threshold to close the door behind them.

He might kiss her then, if Bellamy doesn't awkwardly peek inside the house looking for his uniform. Or he might kiss her when he comes out of the bathroom once again, appropriately dressed, but he doesn't.

"I'm still on duty," he says by the door.

"Of course."

"Till 6AM." It's less than three hours away and she must be looking like a mess of lack of sleep and confusion already. Yet the look in his eyes makes her insides melt. "Did you put a spell in that coffee?" he jokes.

Worst than teenagers. She doesn't remember it being that difficult when she was her daughter's age, and she should have gained in confidence and experience at forty-two, instead she snort-laughs at him and shakes her head. They are both terrible at this, maybe it's fate. It has to be, she cannot make any sense of the night otherwise.

"I'll make more for later," she promises with a kiss on his cheek.


End file.
